The formation and fragmentation of the ring appearing in the collapse of a rotating cloud

Cha, S.-H. and Whitworth, Anthony Peter ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1178-5486 2003. The formation and fragmentation of the ring appearing in the collapse of a rotating cloud. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 340 (1) , pp. 91-104. 10.1046/j.1365-8711.2003.06234.x

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Abstract

Numerical simulations of the collapse of a slowly rotating cloud have been performed, assuming either isothermality, or a barotropic equation of state that reproduces the expected thermal behaviour of protostellar gas. A ring appears in the late stages of the collapse of a rotating cloud, and we have investigated the effect of differential rotation on the formation and fragmentation of this ring. In the simulations presented here, we have used Godunov-type particle hydrodynamics to avoid the side effects of artificial viscosity in a differentially rotating cloud. The initial state of a cloud is characterized by Graphic and Graphic, where Graphic, Ω and Graphic are the thermal, gravitational and rotational energies, respectively. If the initial angular velocity, ω, of a cloud is proportional to r−P, then in the isothermal simulations, a ring forms if P is larger than 0.5, provided βo≲ 0.035. In the simulations using a barotropic equation of state, with αo= 0.6 and βo≲ 0.035, a ring is always formed, irrespective of whether P≤ 0.5 or P > 0.5. However, the mechanism and time of ring formation are different in the two extremes, as are the final configurations. Strong differential rotation (P > 0.5) is more effective in inducing fragmentation than solid-body rotation (P= 0), in the sense that fragmentation tends to occur earlier and to produce more fragments when P is larger.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Physics and Astronomy
Subjects:	Q Science > QB Astronomy
Uncontrolled Keywords:	methods: numerical; binaries: general; stars: formation
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
ISSN:	0035-8711
Last Modified:	24 Oct 2022 11:14
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/47429

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